Money keeps pouring into a new wave of e-commerce startups. The latest news: A big $40 million round for fashion deals website ShoeDazzle.

While a number of companies are trying to add a social element to online shopping, Santa Monica, Calif.-based ShoeDazzle sounds a little more traditional — in some ways, it’s a fashion-focused, personalized spin on the book of the month club that I belonged to in high school. Users fill out a style profile, then the website recommends different shoes, handbags, and jewelry. They can purchase one item each month for $39.95, and if nothing grabs their fancy they can skip the month or request alternate items. Users also earn credits for making purchases and inviting friends.

The company was founded by celebrity Kim Kardashian and LegalZoom co-founder Brian Lee and has 3 million subscribers.

ShoeDazzle has now raised $60 million in funding. The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, the firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz that has quickly become one of the biggest names in venture capital. Existing investors Polaris Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participated.

Companies: Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, ShoeDazzle

People: Ben Lee, e commerce, Kim Kardashian

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Today’s funding announcements include companies that develop cameras, distribute customer reviews and manage APIs:

GoPro brings in funding for action video recorders: The developer of the HD HERO line of wearable and gear mountable cameras has raised has raised an undisclosed yet “substantial” round of funding from Riverwood Capital, Steamboat Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Sageview Capital and Walden International. The company, based in Half Moon Bay, Calif., is popular among pro athletes, pro video producers and consumers alike for its cameras and accessories, which will now be sold in all Best Buy stores nationwide.

PowerReviews raises $10M to generate customer feedback: The customer review service has raised a new round of funding led by Four Rivers Group with participation from Woodside Fund, Menlo Ventures and Tenaya Capital. Based in San Francisco, the company provides the technology for user-generated reviews to more than 5,000 retailers including Brookstone, Drugstore.com and Diapers.com.

Mashery gets $11M to manage APIs: The provider of tools and services for API (application programming interface) management has raised a fourth round of funding led by OpenView Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Cisco, Formative Ventures, First Round Capital and .406 Ventures. The San Francisco company, which was founded in 2006, today has a network of more than 100,000 developers and has more than 100 clients including Netflix, The New York Times and CNET.

Newtopia grabs seed funding to whip you into shape: The personalized health coaching service has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from BDC Venture Capital and Canadian angel investors, peHUB reports. Founded in 2008, the company provides lifestyle management advice to users in the form of individualized health plans, coaching support and exercise help.

Companies: .406 Ventures, Cisco, First Round Capital, Formative Ventures, Four Rivers Group, GoPro, Mashery, Menlo Ventures, Newtopia, OpenView Venture Partners, powerreviews, Riverwood Capital, Sageview Capital, Steamboat Ventures, Tenaya Capital, U.s. Venture Partners, Walden International, Woodside Fund

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Today’s funding announcements include companies that help users discover videos, find babysitters and manage networks:

Video search company Digitalsmiths grabs $12.5M: The developer of video search and discovery products has raised a third round of funding led by Technicolor with participation from existing investors including .406 Ventures, Aurora Funds,Chrysalis Ventures, Capitol Broadcasting and Cisco. Based in Durham, North Carolina, the company helps content owners and consumers easily find relevant videos. During this year’s NCAA March Madness, Digitalsmiths partnered with Turner Sports to provide real-time search capabilities of game videos.

Sittercity gets $22.6M to bring families and caregivers together: The online service has raised a new round of funding led by Baird Venture Partners and New World Ventures to match families with babysitters, pet sitters and other caregivers, the Chicago Tribune reports. The Chicago-based company, which serves individuals along with serving employees of companies through its corporate program, plans to use the funding to expand domestically and abroad.

AppNeta gets $6.2M to manage network performance: The Wellesley, Mass.-based company has raised a new round of funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Egan-Managed Capital, JMI Equity and Business Development Bank of Canada. The company, which relaunched today as AppNeta from Apparent Networks, currently works with more than 1,000 managed service providers and enterprise customers to ensure consistent network performance in data center, cloud, remote office and mobile environments.

Sewichi raises seed round for mobile analytics: The Seattle-based startup has raised an undisclosed amount from Madrona Venture Group with participation from the company’s founder, who was an early employee at airfare prediction site Farecast. The early stage company has not yet released many details but claims it will be focused on mobile analytics and measurement.

Companies: .406 Ventures, AppNeta, Aurora Funds, Bain Capital Ventures, Baird Venture Partners, Capitol Broadcasting, Chrysalis Ventures, Cisco, Digitalsmiths, Egan Managed Capital, JMI Equity, Madrona Venture Group, New World Ventures, Sewichi, Sittercity, Technicolor

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Today’s funding announcements include new solutions for shopping, reading and computing:

Decide gets $6M for eCommerce company: The Seattle-based company has raised a second round of funding led by Maveron with participation from Madrona Venture Group and angel investors. The site, still in stealth mode but expected to go live this spring, was co-founded by Oren Etzioni, founder of airfare prediction service Farecast, and is “bringing unprecedented transparency to electronics shopping.”

Byliner raises $935K for new nonfiction destination: The company behind Byliner.com, a site offering archives of nonfiction writing, has raised a round of seed funding led by Freestyle Capital and SoftTechVC with participation from other investors. The site, which will officially launch in May, plans to offer its users recommendations and discussion forums for nonfiction work. The site will also distribute Byliner Originals, nonfiction pieces published in digital form by Byliner. The company is based in San Francisco.

IO Turbine brings in $7.75M to improve virtualized computing performance: The San Jose-based software company has raised a new round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Merus Capital and angel investors. Founded in December 2009, the company has partnered with VMware and Microsoft and is working on a solution to address I/O bottleneck issues by using Flash technology.

Companies: Byliner, Decide, farecast, Freestyle Capital, IO Turbine, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Maveron, Merus Capital, Microsoft, Softtechvc, VMWare

People: Oren Etzioni

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Virtual storage startup Nutanix came out of stealth mode today, officially announcing $13.2 million in a first round of institutional funding.

The company said it will take aim at the $20 billion market currently building private clouds for server or desktop virtualization and service providers building public clouds.

The appliance leverages server-attached solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disks, enabling organizations to run virtual machines without requiring a complex and costly SAN (storage area network) or NAS (network attached storage) infrastructure.

The Santa Clara-based startup claims that it essentially “does away” with the traditional SAN/NAS dilemma, by building “Google-like” scale-out architecture that brings computing and storage into a single tier.

That means that virtual machines running on Nutanix’s appliances use high performance flash and hard disk storage from the cluster, thereby theoretically shrinking the data center, reducing capital and administration costs.

Tags: cloud computing, cloud storage, NAS, SAN, storage

Companies: Aster Data, Blumberg Capital, Cisco Systems, EMC Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NetApp, Nutanix, Oracle, Veritas Software, VMWare

People: Ajeet Singh

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Today’s funding announcements include companies working on machine learning, online shopping and clinical studies:

Stealthy Clover lands $5.5M: The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup has raised equity funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Backed by Sutter Hill Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Morado Venture Partners, the company says it is building a machine learning and algorithms team. Co-founded by an entrepreneur-in-residence at Sutter Hill Ventures, Clover was started in 2010 and is also building a sales team in New York, according to job postings on its site.

Project Slice raises $3.8M to simplify online shopping: The Palo Alto-based startup, another company currently in stealth mode, has raised a new round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. The company, which previously raised $5M from investors including DCM and Lightspeed Venture Partners, says it is a “free service designed to simplify your online shopping.”

goBalto grabs $2.9M for clinical trial software: The San Francisco-based company has raised equity funding to build web-based software for use in clinical trials, according to a filing with the SEC. Founded in 2008, the company aims to help the pharmaceutical development and drug manufacturing industries start clinical studies more easily.

Zencoder brings in $2M for video encoding software: The startup has raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, SV Angel and 500 Startups, among others, peHUB reports. Founded in 2010, the Madison, Wisconsin-based company transcodes videos, or converts videos from one format to another, for media content owners. The company, which previously raised seed funding from Y Combinator, works with customers like PBS Television, Posterous and College Humor.

Companies: 500 Startups, Andreessen Horowitz, Clover, DCM, goBalto, Ignition Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Morado Venture Partners, Posterous, Project Slice, Sutter Hill Ventures, SV Angel, Zencoder

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Accel Partners, the venture capital firm known for invest in big tech homeruns such as Facebook, has gone Hollywood with a $40 million investment in Dark Knight producer Legendary Pictures, according to Forbes.

The deal is unusual because venture capitalists have typically stayed away from from risky bets on movies, which can easily be hits or flops. Investing in content is a much different business than investing in technology, which can be more easily evaluated by VCs or engineers working for them. Accel seems to have gotten beyond that worry.

Legendary Pictures in Burbank, Calif., is best known as the film production company that created The Dark Knight, one of the most successful movies of all time. Founded by Thomas Tull, Legendary co-produces and co-finances films with Warner Bros. Legendary had previously raised Wall Street private equity and hedge fund money from ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors and M/C Venture Partners.

The investment was led by Accel’s Jim Breyer, who was primarily responsible for driving the Facebook investment. Breyer earned some Hollywood chops as a member of the board of Marvel Entertainment, which made not only comics but blockbuster movies and has now been acquired by Disney. Breyer was named the No. 1 VC today on Forbes’ Midas List of top VC investors.

Accel has also moved beyond content risk worries by investing in game maker Rovio, whose Angry Birds game has become a monster hit on mobile with more than 100 million downloads across mobile devices.

Companies: Accel Partners, Legendary Pictures, Marvel Comics

People: Jim Breyer

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The initial public offering market for venture-backed companies in the first quarter was the strongest since 2007, according to a report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.

Fourteen VC-backed IPOs occurred in the first quarter, with companies raising an average of $98.3 million. The total amount raised was $1.37 billion. Coupled with a strong acquisition market, the results showed that venture capitalists are finally getting some decent exits as the tech industry recovers from the recession.

During the quarter, 109 venture-backed companies were acquired. Of the 45 deals where the acquisition price was disclosed, the total purchase prices added up to $5.9 billion.

“The venture capital exit market today is exhibiting a welcome stability in terms of both IPOs and acquisitions,” said Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA, the trade group for the VC industry. “For more than a year, we have seen a high volume of strategic sales that are bringing in solid returns for the venture industry, coupled with an IPO market that is growing and improving steadily in terms of volume and predictability.”

Heesen added, “This stability is an absolute prerequisite for the growth we need, particularly in the capital markets where the volatility of the recession years contributed to the many challenges of companies going public. A successful 2011 will be contingent upon maintaining the momentum in the acquisitions market while moving the current IPO pipeline through at a faster clip. Ideally we would like to see a 20 to 30 percent increase of US venture-backed companies going public this year. Market signs currently suggest that this is a reasonable goal.”

As you can see from the chart below, the merger and acquisition exits are far more popular than IPOs now. In 2010, there were 431 M&A deals, compared to just 72 IPOs. Back in 2007, there were 380 M&A deals and 86 IPOs. And way back in 1999, there were more than 300 IPOs.

[photo credit: greentechmedia]

Tags: IPOs

Companies: NVCA, Thomson Reuters

People: Mark Heesen

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Today’s funding announcements including one company offering sales data and two companies offering local deals:

InsideView brings in $12M for sales intelligence: The developer of a tool for sales professionals has raised a third round of funding led by Foundation Capital with participation from Emergence Capital Partners, Rembrandt Venture Partners and Greenhouse Capital Partners. Based in San Francisco, the company provides more than 75,000 sales professionals with aggregate data from news, editorial and social media sites. InsideView recently launched the Social Selling University, a program that teaches sales people how to use social media to increase sales.

DealsGoRound grabs angel funding for daily deals exchange: The secondary marketplace for daily deals from sites like Groupon and Living Social has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding. The company, which is based in Chicago and was founded in early 2010, also launched out of beta today. DealsGoRound currently facilitates resales and exchanges of daily deals in more than 50 U.S. cities.

Offline Labs raises $1M for members-only site: The company founded by former Slide employees has raised a round of seed funding from a long list of investors including Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Polaris Ventures and General Catalyst Partners. Based in San Francisco, the company is launching Sōsh, its first product, soon. Though details are yet to be released, the company says the product will bring memorable activities to members through events and deals.

SocialVibe lands $20M for digital ads: The Los Angeles-based startup has raised a fourth round of funding led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures and Pinnacle Ventures. The company, which works with big-name advertisers including Coke, Disney and McDonalds, delivers ads by engaging with consumers through networks like Zynga and rewarding them for their interactions.

Companies: DealsGoRound, Emergence Capital Partners, Foundation Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Greenhouse Capital Partners, Groupon, InsideView, Jafco Ventuers, Living Social, Norwest Venture Partners, Offline Labs, Pinnacle Ventures, Polaris Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, SocialVibe

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Investment banks are scrambling to open branches and make their presence known in the Silicon Valley area because they are expecting a “huge wave” of mergers and acquisitions and financing deals in tech and media over the next two years, Kevin Covert, president and co-founder of boutique I-bank Covert and Co., told VentureBeat today.

Covert launched his own new bank today after leaving investment bank Montgomery & Co., because he says the opportunities right now for investors looking to capitalize on a white-hot startup climate on the West Coast were just too great to pass up.

“[I think] the media and tech industry will be leading the nation out of recession from the financial/housing crisis, because acquirers are now streamlined, flush with cash, and highly competitive,” said Covert.

As part of that change, the venture capital industry has gone through “major” changes, with a whole new investing climate emerging — all of which now has I-banks hungrily eyeing thousands of tech companies with great businesses still facing tight investing and a sluggish IPO market.

Covert was the primary architect of Montgomery’s investment banking business and helped establish the core M&A and private placement practices of the bank over the span of 10 years. He also founded the bank’s software and media groups.

While there, he oversaw the mergers and acquisitions of Musicmatch/Yahoo, Club Penguin/Disney, DailyCandy/Comcast, MySpace/NewsCorp, PilotSoftware/SAP, Grouper/Sony, ifilm/Viacom, Rent.com/eBay, Ribbit/BT, DWL/IBM and Element5/DigitalRiver.

He also captained the bank’s financing of Meebo, Realtime Worlds, WildTangent, Reactrix, Move Networks, KickApps, LegalZoom, Specific Media and VantageMedia.

While making those deals, Covert said he saw that many smaller I-banks are now beginning to realize the enormous opportunities they have to get in on the ground floor of some of the world’s hottest pre-IPO tech companies.

“Buyer and seller valuations are more aligned than in past five years,” said Covert, “and there are no dominant tech investment banks to serve this upcoming wave of deals. Large banks [like] Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Allen & Co. serve public companies, but it is the entrepreneurs and investors that desperately need quality M&A and financing services.”

“The old-school investment banking world is changing,” he added.

Companies: BT, Club Penguin/Disney, Comcast, covert and co, Dailycandy, DigitalRiver, DWL, eBay, Element5, Grouper, IBM, ifilm, Montgomery & Co., Musicmatch/Yahoo, MySpace, NewsCorp, PilotSoftware, Rent.com, Ribbit, SAP, Sony, Viacom

People: kevin covert

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